


Conversations With (Not) Dead People

by The_Wavesinger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cooking, First War with Voldemort, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Treat, background Lily Evans/James Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 07:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: Lily and Remus come back from a mission, and wait for James and Sirius. (While they wait, they talk.)





	Conversations With (Not) Dead People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ifimightchime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifimightchime/gifts).



> The title is from Buffy, with many thanks to a nonnie.

It’s 4AM when Remus and Lily stumble into the deserted headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix (and the fact that it’s deserted isn’t a good sign, not at all, but he tries not to think about that) after a decidedly unproductive night watching an abandoned warehouse which Augustus Rookwood holds under a false name. It’s been _abandoned_ for the six months they’ve been watching it. And James and Sirius still aren’t back from their respective missions, and there’s a sick feeling building at the pit of his stomach. (A feeling that seems to have taken up residence in his intestines recently, so hopefully it isn’t a premonition.)

“Well,” Lily announces to the empty room, “that was productive.”

Remus sighs. The sigh conveys everything he feels like saying right now.

“I respect Dumbledore immensely,” she continues, ignoring Remus, “but the two of us need to be out in the field right now, not stuck doing this utter _bloody_ nonsense. Rookwood isn’t going to visit that warehouse any time soon, and if he does he’ll Apparate inside. And their stupid wards stop us from tracking Apparation.” (She’s grumbling, but she knows why. Yesterday was a near brush with Bellatrix Lestrange for her, and they’re short on Order member, yes (the low life expectancy makes both recruitment and retainment quite difficult)s, but not yet so short that they can’t let a pregnant girl and a werewolf with a lunar hangover rest a day before they wade back into the fray.)

“They have collaborators who can’t Apparate,” Remus points out, “and maybe they’ve Anti-Apparation Charmed it against themselves too.” He’s only being contrary; Disillusionment Charms work well enough when it’s dark, even if the spellcaster is only so-so at it, and Greyback and his ilk have other methods of travelling.

Lily kicks his shin, ignoring his startled yelp. “You’re not funny. Sirius is funny when he’s contrary because he’s a _child_. You're not.”

“ _You're_ acting like a child.” He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him right now. Or, he does—it’s the night after the full and the moon is still round in the sky, and Dumbledore took him aside this morning for a quiet talk about how terribly the war is going, and then asked (never ordered, but sometimes, with everything he owes Dumbledore—but that’s a path he’ll not go down) him to—but he doesn’t want to think about that right now. He laughs instead, forced and tight but better than nothing.

“Because I’m _carrying_ a child right now.” Lily sounds grumpy, now, and it’s almost enough to make him actually laugh. “And the little fucker won’t stop _kicking_ .”

“He’s just taking after his mother then.”

Lily flips him the bird. “I’ll kick _you_ in the bladder if you don't shut up.”

“What on earth would James say to see his wife so violent?”

“James,” Lily glowers, crossing her arms across her belly, “better come back in one piece or I’ll murder him. He’s already _late_ . And so’s Sirius.”

“They better not have stopped at a pub because they “accidentally” met after a mission.” Remus is still pissed about that. They’d been three hours late, and for those three hours, he and Lily had been worried out of their wits.

Lily only shakes her head. “Just—they’ll be back soon, Remus. Speaking of which, what’s going on with Peter? He’s not been around much lately.”

That _is_ a good question, but Remus doesn’t know much more than Lily does. “His family’s being stubborn about going into hiding or even properly warding their house. You know how it is.”

“Mhmmm.” Neither of them know anything of the sort—Lily’s parents aren’t around anymore, and Remus’ Mum learned to put up blood wards after he got bitten (he gets his philosophy that intent is what makes magic Dark from her, obviously)—but they can imagine, and Remus can feel himself move unconsciously closer to Lily even as she drifts against his side. They’ve lost so much already—he’s lost so much already—but if he loses any of them—

But no. He’s not going to think dark thoughts. “You want pancakes, Lily?” His stomach rumbles as he speaks, and he realizes, suddenly, that he’s hungry.

Lily laughs. “Pretty sure you’re going to be making some whether or not I want them, but let me help.”

The Order’s kitchen is tiny but well-fitted, and stocked decently enough that Remus has lived off one meal a day made there sometimes, when his pockets are especially empty. (He doesn’t like taking even that kind of charity, but war calls for exceptions—he can't fight if he's working Muggle jobs and/or half-dead because of hunger. And it’s James who stocks the pantry most often anyway, and Remus might be proud, but he doesn’t mind helping himself to James’ things at _all_. )

Lily insists on taking over the cooking, and Remus doesn’t argue. She adds too much milk to the batter, though, and almost cracks a bad egg into it, but she’s a _horrible_ cook. James isn’t any good with kitchen magic either. “I wonder how you and James survive sometimes,” he remarks as Lily frowns at the baking soda, a faintly puzzled expression on her face.

“We haven’t wasted away yet,” she retorts. She’s trying to glare the batter into submission, now, and Remus sighs.

“Can I please take over? Or at least let me teach you how.”

It’s with some reluctance that she agrees, but under his (sometimes not-so-patient) instructions, the batter whips itself into some semblance of proper taste and consistency. They find blueberries and chocolate chips in the fridge, and Lily even manages to flip one of the blueberry pancakes perfectly. (There may or may not have been a few spats, but they’re not going to mention those, because they are both adults and definitely didn’t come close to slapping each other with the wooden spatula. Because they’re calm, rational adults.)

They leave half the batter to heat up later, for James and Sirius, but the remaining pancakes turn out, by some miracle, _delicious_ . (Remus likes the chocolate chip better just because it's chocolate, but he has to concede that the blueberry is wonderful too.) They eat standing in the kitchen, watching the door and the window both for any sign of either James or Sirius.

“Sirius is going to be the godfather.” Lily says abruptly, once most of her plate is polished clean. “We’d name you as well, but the idiots at the Ministry seem to think that sprouting fur and fangs once a month disqualifies you from being Harry’s guardian if we don’t all die together in some great blazing goodbye.”

“It’s almost as if werewolves are dangerous,” Remus agrees.

Lily grins at him. “Well, your bedhead is quite frightening.” Then, quieter, “You know, I keep thinking about how the little brat’s childhood is going to be so _strange_ . He’ll be born in the middle of a war, and he’s going to know about magic from when he’s a baby. I didn’t even know witches existed outside of storybooks until I was eleven. And I don't know what we're going to do once he's born. James can't keep going to work. The MLE is bloody useless against the Death Eaters anyway, so that's no skin off his nose. But there's the Order to think of, and I don't know what to do, I d o n't .” Here she sniffs, her face scrunching up for a moment, but she takes a deep breath and gets ahold of herself almost immediately. “We can't stop fighting, Remus, I don't want my child to grow up in a world of Death Eaters. But what use is fighting for him going to be if one of us die?”

She's crying, Remus thinks, and then realizes with some horror that he's crying too. He takes her plate from her hands and puts it on the counter with his mechanically, then wraps his arms around her. She's shaking with silent sobs, and he can feel wetness spreading through the cloth of his shirt against his shoulder shoulder. He's not in any better state, tears running down his face, and he's trying desperately not to think, not to imagine the future.

At length they both manage to calm down. Remus is feeling rather embarrassed by the outpouring of emotion, now, and he can see by the faint pink dusting Lily’s face that she is too. He takes her hand, though, because it's still not even six in the morning and he's tired and scared and barely twenty and he just wants all this to end. And at least there's someone with him who's feeling the same thing.

“Lily,” he says, “You know that me and Sirius would take care of Prongs Junior if something happened to both of you, right? And if something happens to us, too, the Order will be there. He won't be alone.”

“I know.” Lily exhales softly. “But just because I know—”

She doesn't finish her sentence; she doesn't have to finish, because Remus understands. “But sometimes I think that being alive would be the worst thing, in the end. If all of you die and it's just me, I don't know how I'd bear it.” Tit for tat, his deepest darkest fears (at least the ones not related to the moon) for hers, and he swallows, his throat tight and sticky, his eyes stinging again.

Lily’s grip on his hand tightens; he draws his other hand across her shoulders, brings her close to him in a half-embrace. There's nothing more to say.

They stand there together and wait for James and Sirius to come back in silence.


End file.
